Women and Size (Fat Studies)

A Socially Constructed Myth: A thin body ideal for women is prevalent in modern Western societies. Cultural images emphasize a thin and firm body (Bordo 2003). Feminists have labeled this ideal, found ubiquitously in fashion magazines, on television, and in other forms of mass media, a “tyranny of slenderness” (Chernin 1994) and an unrealistic and unattainable “beauty myth” (Wolf 1991). For most women, the ideal is beyond reach. Research shows an intensification of the ideal over time (Wiseman et al. 1992) and that the probability of attaining Barbie-like proportions is less than 1 in 100,000 (Norton et al. 1996). Gender scholars also point out that this beauty ideal is a socially constructed fiction. Thinness is not necessarily inherently beautiful. Rather, at any given time and place, social norms and institutions dictate what is thought to be attractive. Among others, consumers and mass media promulgate and reinforce this thin ideal. Yet precisely because it is a mutable social construction, it can be challenged, however difficult this task may be because of the embedded structure. A $40 billion-a-year diet industry perpetuates the beauty myth that is part of what Bartky (1990) refers to as a “fashion beauty complex.” The myth enables the diet industry to profit from the continuous and constant suffering of fat individuals (Fraser 1998; Oliver 2006). The myth also lines the pockets of other related industries including healthcare providers, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies (see Thomas and Wilkerson 2005). It flourishes with industries’ encouragement, but is successful in part because of reinforcement from dominant cultural, social, moral, and health discourses.